Come To Me (Owned 3)

“Of course I—oh my god, Vic! You’ve been shot!”

I chuckled. “My problems are a bit bigger than a gunshot, don’t you think?”

“I can get you out of here,” Lenny said. Her voice cracked, betraying her fear despite the determination. “I’ll drag you down the stairs…or throw you out the window onto a trampoline. They still do that right? I probably have time to run out and get the fire department…”

“It’s better this way, Lenny.”

“How?” she screamed. “How on earth is this better? Don’t give up, goddammit, Vic!” I smiled to myself, thinking that it was a bit perfect that her fire matched the one raging around us. You could even make the argument that she’d come undone. We’d all come undone.

Or maybe I was just sick with smoke.

“You’ll find someone who doesn’t lie,” I pressed. “Someone who can be better for you.”

“I never figured you for the self-loathing type, Vic.” I could practically hear the eye roll in her voice. “Now is definitely not the time to start.”

“I’m serious, Lenny.”

Lenny moved her hands from my leg to my arm. I felt my blood on them, warm and sticky. She clutched me as she spoke. “I want to spend forever with you Vic.”

“Maybe our forever isn’t supposed to last. Maybe our forever is short and intense and all consuming. We’re a neutron star, Lenny. When I die, I’ll take you with me. I don’t want to take you with me. Let me burn out alone.” For a mercenary, for a killer, for a glorified thug, I thought I’d said my peace well. Her sticky grip slowly slid away, and I thought we were done with it.

Then she slapped me on the chest. “You’re an ass.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to a dying man.” I laughed, despite the pain in my chest.

“You don’t have to die.” Lenny re-upped her grip, tugging at me so hard I felt it in every crevice of my body. “Get your ass up and let’s go.”

“Lennox—”

“Let’s go!”

“Lenny, I’m pinned.” A beam had fallen from above. I loved lofted and open ceilings. Of course that just meant when the previously beautiful architectural beam fell, it had a longer way to fall—specifically, onto my leg.

Lenny studied me for a moment, blue eyes piercing even through the smoke and the fire, then she lay down alongside me.

“Do you think it could have been different?” Lennox whispered, holding my hand. We stared up at the falling cinders like they were falling stars, bright dots of yellow and tangerine that quickly faded to nothing. In our twisted universe, they were.

I thought on her question as fire raged, black smoke filling our never very happy apartment. “No,” I answered her. “It would have always ended this way. Maybe not today, maybe not next year, but eventually.”

“Let’s pretend.” Lenny gripped my hand tighter. “Let’s pretend for a minute that it isn’t today, but sixty years from now. We’re old, we’ve had a life, we’ve had kids, and we were happy.”

“What were our kids’ names?” I asked. Somewhere something popped and crackled.

Lenny turned on her side, smiling at me. “On the count of three!”

“Seriously?” A smile twitched at my lips.

“One…” she started. I nearly laughed. Only Lenny, amidst absolute ruin, would start a fucking game. “Two…” she continued. On three we both said their names.

“Romeo!” I shouted.

“Ophelia!” she said.

“Ophelia?” I laughed. “Why Ophelia?”

“Romeo?” Lennox scoffed, turning again to her back. “Could you be more cliché?”

“What did our kids grow up and become?” I said, getting away from the subject of my inevitable demise.